Please fix the search UI in Safari on the iPhone.

I’ve been using the iPhone for some time now and overall, the interface is really slick. The buttons are consistently placed and this gives a really strong user experience. Everything appears to be in the obvious place.

The trouble is, I like to search the web and it looks like you’ve forgotten your own iPhone user interface rules for this area.

Let me explain

In all your other applications, the primary action button is located top-right with a secondary action button top-left.

Here’s some examples:

You get the picture, right?

Over time the user learns this convention and without realising it assumes that the top-right button means “OK”, “Submit”, “Search” or whatever the primary action is.

Now, let’s have a look at the Safari search screen

What’s in the top-right button position?

It’s the “Cancel” button i.e. the secondary action.

Oh dear. How did that get there?

At first, I thought that I was at fault because I hadn’t properly learned the interface. Then I remembered one of the first observations you make when usability testing. Users blame themselves for the mistakes in the design of the interface.

That the reason I was making the mistake so often was precisely because I had learned the conventions of the user interface.

So what can we do?

The interface needs a subtle redesign. Nothing major, just an increment to correct the problem.

There are 2 options that immediately spring to mind

Option 1: Move the Cancel button to the top-left “secondary action” position

This should be really easy. The basic premise of the current design is left intact and the secondary action is returned to the correct place in the interface – the top-left position.

Option 2: Add a “Search” button in the top-right position and move the Cancel button to the top-left “secondary action” position.

We’ve got an additional button now, but it’s consistent with the overall design of the other apps you produce.

I know you’re really busy right now, especially with all the activity around the iPad, but please fit this into the next version of the OS. It is such a minor UI change, but would markedly improve the way the browser search interface works.

Best of luck with iPhone OS 4.0. I hope you bundle some of these ideas, but don’t worry too much about Flash.

David

P.S. If you can’t manage this for me, then I’d be happy to settle for Opera Mini being approved in the App Store instead – I quite like the idea of being able to browse 6 times faster than Safari.

Image credit: UK stamp

…or how to display attachments in an unordered list.

Something that bugs me in Confluence is the way that attachments are shown. The default view is a big table with just about all the information related to each attachment.

This is great if you want all this detail, but I’m a simple soul with simple needs.

Krug suggested “Omit needless words”. In this case, it’s more of “Omit needless metadata”.

Less is more

Enter {list-attachments} – a user macro that dispenses with the excess. It displays an unordered list with the filename, file size and last modified date. If there’s a comment for the attachment, this is displayed in the link text rather than the filename.

This is a really straightforward view of the attachments on the page.

How do I install {list-attachments} ?

It’s pretty easy. As a Confluence administrator, go to Confluence Admin | User Macros and click on Create a User Macro.

Macro name: list-attachments

Template:

## MACRO: list-attachments
## Updated: 2011-03-15
## View page attachments in a simple list
## USAGE: {list-attachments}

##applyDecorator("page")
	#set ($attachmentsList = $content.getLatestVersionsOfAttachments())
    ##<div class="listAttachmentsDiv">
        #if ($attachmentsList.size() > 0)
			<ul>
		        #foreach( $attachment in $attachmentsList )
			        #set ($currentAttachmentId = $attachment.id)
					#if ($attachment.comment && $attachment.comment.trim().length() > 0)
						## Display the comment as the link text instead of the filename
						<li><a href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")">$generalUtil.htmlEncode($attachment.comment)</a></li>
					#else
						## Display the filename as the link text
						<li><a href="$generalUtil.htmlEncode("${req.contextPath}${attachment.downloadPathWithoutVersion}")">$generalUtil.htmlEncode($attachment.fileName)</a></li>
					#end
			    #end
			</ul>
		#end
	##</div>
##end

Accept the defaults for the other fields, then click on Save

To call the macro in the page type: {list-attachments}

The result:

Now you’re left with a simple list of links — much purer than a big fat table of metadata.

For extra points (Updated 2011-03-15)

If you’ve got a might great slab of files attached to the Confluence page, why not wrap this usermacro in the azList macro:

{azlist}{list-attachments}{azlist}

The result:

I love Confluence. It’s simple. It’s easy to use. It’s hierarchical, so you can build a nice structure.

But…

I hate Confluence. I can’t find anything. Ever. It’s hierarchical, but which branch in the hierarchy is my content located in? Damnit, the Lucene powered search doesn’t seem to be able to find what I’m searching for.

My main gripe with Confluence is that by default it uses breadcrumb trails as primary navigation contrary to breadcrumbs best practices. They are no replacement for the real deal.

Breadcrumbs are secondary navigation designed as an alternative to the main navigational scheme. As such they give no context to relate the current page to others at the same level in the hierarchy. Breadcrumbs cannot aid in navigation within a level. So using breadcrumbs as primary navigation leads to a lack of awareness of the structure of the website/wiki space and thus confusion.

With this in mind, I decided to add a consistent primary navigational scheme to our global Confluence template. As Atlassian have in the past been known to change the templating scheme a little on upgrade to newer versions of Confluence, it is important to limit the changes to be as minimal as possible to limit ongoing templating maintenance issues.

Templating changes

These are limited to…

• Replace the main content div with a 2 column table based layout (I know, that’s a somewhat naughty, but I’m a realist and in a hurry – Confluence already uses tables for some aspects of layout)
• Add a {pagetree} to the left hand column for primary navigation
• Replace a few icons in the {pagetree} macro to be a bit more Mac, a bit less Windows
• Add a custom/override stylesheet

I’m using the {pagetree} macro, but I’m not overly fond of it. Ideally, I’d like it to expand siblings and children of the current page by default. But again, I’m not interested in rolling my own navigational system. Rather I’ll make do and mend what’s available. It does an adequate job, but looks a bit ugly.

Edit Site Layouts | Page Layout

Find this content div:

<div id="content" class="page $!mode">
	...
	...
	...
</div>

Replace it with a table

<table id="myContent">
	<tr>
		<td class="myNavigation">$helper.renderConfluenceMacro("{pagetree:root=$space.homePage.title|startDepth=1}")</td>

		<td id="content" class="page $!mode">
			...
			...
			...
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

I’m not proud of adding a table for layout, but it much less bad than the markup I’ve seen produced by some third party theme building plugins.

Global Stylesheet

Add a custom/override to the default stylesheet:

body {
	width: 90%;
	min-width: 750px;
	/*max-width: 1000px;*/
	margin:0 auto;
	height: 100%;
	background-color: #fff;
}
h1, h2 ,h3, h4 {
	font-family: Calibri, Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif;
	line-height: 1.25;
	margin: 0 0 .25em;
}
#header {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 3px 6px;
	background: #fff url(/images/my-images/backgrounds/menus/blue03.png) repeat-x;
}
#main {
	border: 0;
	padding-top: 30px;
}
#com-atlassian-confluence h1#title-heading img.space {
	margin-right: 10px;
	margin-left: 320px;
}
#myContent, #myContent  td {
	border-collapse:collapse;
}
#myContent, #myContent td td {
	border: 0;
}
#myContent {
	margin: -87px 0 0 0;
	background-color: #fff;
}
#myContent tr {
	vertical-align: top;
}
#myContent .myNavigation  {
	width: 270px;
	min-width: 270px;
	padding-top: 100px;
}
#myContent .myNavigation a {
	text-decoration: none;
}
#myContent .myNavigation ul ul {
	padding-left: 0;
	border-top: 1px solid #ccc;
}
#myContent .myNavigation ul ul ul {
	padding: 0;
	border: 0;
	margin: 10px -8px 0 -8px;
}
#myContent .myNavigation ul ul ul ul {
	margin: 0;
	padding: 0;
}
#myContent .myNavigation ul ul li {
	border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
	padding: 8px 8px 0 8px;
	background: #fff url(/images/my-images/backgrounds/menus/grey01.png) repeat-x;
}
#myContent .myNavigation ul ul ul li {
	border: 0;
	padding: 3px 8px 3px 20px;
	background-color: #ccc;
	background-image: none;
}
#myContent .myNavigation img {
	margin-right: 2px;
}
#myContent .myNavigation span img {
	display: none;
}
#myContent #content {
	padding: 100px 10px 10px 50px;
}
#myContent #content #editpageform {
	width: 100%;
}
#myContent #content .page-metadata {
	color: #999;
}
#myContent #content .wiki-content > .panelMacro {
	margin: 10px 0;
}
#footer {
	display: none;
}

Additional and replacement images

I’ve replaced the following images used by {pagetree}.

• /images/icons/tree_plus.gif
• /images/icons/tree_minus.gif
• /images/icons/tree_square.gif

This will have the side effect of making all {pagetree} icons more pleasing to look at.

I’ve added the following backgrounds:

• /images/my-images/backgrounds/menus/blue03.png (for the breadcrumb trail /search bar)
• /images/my-images/backgrounds/menus/grey01.png (for the primary/left-hand navigation)

Resulting Look and Feel

This is just a work-in-progress, but gives a marked improvement in usability due to the enhanced navigation.